Analysis: Immigration compromise was no match for conservative foes branding it 'amnesty'

Saturday

Jun 30, 2007 at 12:15 AM

WASHINGTON — Championed by President Bush and influential members of both parties, the immigration overhaul was nonetheless something of an orphan from the beginning. Even its strongest supporters viewed it as good enough but far from ideal.

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS

WASHINGTON — Championed by President Bush and influential members of both parties, the immigration overhaul was nonetheless something of an orphan from the beginning. Even its strongest supporters viewed it as good enough but far from ideal.

Their middle-ground position ultimately lost out to the loud and consistent argument by the president's conservative base that the measure amounted to amnesty for lawbreakers — an angry outcry amplified and fed by talk radio and TV hosts and bloggers.

"The bill was defeated by an anti-immigrant revolt that intimidated Republican lawmakers, and they folded. They wilted under the pressure," said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, one of several liberal groups that backed the measure despite misgivings about some of its key elements.

"The argument that it was amnesty was stronger," said Brian Darling of the conservative Heritage Foundation. "You can't really be passionate about a bill where the key supporters say, 'This bill isn't great, but it's the best we can do.'"

The bill that died in the Senate this week melded the top priorities of the left and right, offering lawful status to as many as 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. while fortifying the border and workplaces against future illegal arrivals. Crafted by an improbable group led by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. to satisfy divergent interests on both sides of the political spectrum, it ended up pleasing none enough.

Major labor unions were against the temporary worker program that they feared would flood workplaces with cheap foreign labor to compete with their members, and drive down their wages and work standards. Their concerns were reflected in Democratic efforts to gut or substantially scale back the program.

Even immigrant-heavy service-worker unions that backed the deal were upset that it gave guest workers no guarantee of being able to stay in the U.S. permanently.

The bill's new point-system to base future immigration on employment criteria instead of family ties sparked opposition from liberal groups who said it was inhumane, and big corporations who worried it would hamper their efforts to recruit the best workers.

And there were deep-seated worries with the bill's key elements among the bases of both parties. Republicans were fundamentally uncomfortable with giving people who came to the U.S. illegally a chance to gain lawful status, while many Democrats felt the hurdles those immigrants would face — from steep fines and long waits to trips home — were unworkable and unfair.

"The center held, and worked as hard as it could work. The problem was that there wasn't the kind of intensity we needed," said Tamar Jacoby of the conservative Manhattan Institute, a backer of the bill. "There were a lot of immigrant groups that didn't like this. People who might be for it were lukewarm, and that left the field open to those who were against it."

Brent Wilkes of the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of several immigrant advocacy groups that opposed the bill as overly punitive, said those concerns made it difficult to compete against "a certain segment of the population building themselves up into an anti-immigrant hysteria."

"It's hard to get people to rally for something they actually think is a bad deal," Wilkes said.

The death of the compromise also reflected the failure of a strategy hatched by the White House early this year to start with an immigration framework that could command substantial conservative support, and then work with Democrats to push it through. The conservative backing never fully materialized, and the concessions made to obtain it alienated some Democrats and liberal groups.

In the end, only 12 Republicans backed the bill in a crushing test-vote Thursday.

"All through the process, they were deferring to the right wing, and in the end, they couldn't deliver the right wing, so it was sort of death by a thousand cuts through the process," said Kevin Appleby of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which supported the bill with deep reservations.

Even Bush's personal pleas in 11th-hour phone calls to senators and a visit to Capitol Hill earlier in the month could not compete with the immense public pressure lawmakers were feeling from the public, which flooded Capitol switchboards in the hours before Thursday's showdown vote.

"The president didn't have a great deal of ability here to come out and twist arms, and I don't think he approached it that way, because he, too, understood that this is a very emotional issue, that members understood their constituencies, and they were going to vote the way they felt they needed to represent their constituents," Kyl said.

Still, Bush's waning influence helped doom the measure, said some public opinion analysts.

Bush "clearly could have been more effective if he was at the height of his game," said John Fortier of the American Enterprise Institute. "Needing to support your president, needing to make sure he didn't lose a big battle because there were going to be other battles down the road — that would have made a big difference."

Julie Hirschfeld Davis covers Capitol Hill for The Associated Press.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.